War of Ideas

A year ago, the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont sold its 31-year-old campus. Its co-founder, the late Murray Bookchin, once expounded on a problem we believe is directly related to the demise of alternative higher education.

In our own time we have seen domination spread over the social landscape to a point where it is beyond all human control. . . . Compared to this stupendous mobilization of materials, of wealth, of human intellect, of human labor for the single goal of domination, all other recent human achievements pale to almost trivial significance. Our art, science, medicine, literature, music and “charitable” acts seem like mere droppings from a table on which gory feasts on the spoils of conquest have engaged the attention of a system whose appetite for rule is utterly unrestrained.

We are convinced that if alternative higher education is to make a comeback in this country, it will be as a result of a combined awareness of its vulnerability and willingness to collaborate with protector societies and individuals who have special knowledge in the field of psychological warfare, netwar, or what is commonly referred to as the war of ideas. Toward that future collaboration, we offer The Public Health Model.